Despite dire warnings, teacher turnover rate dropped in Wake County

In April, a group of Wake County teachers and administrators held a press conference that warned of an “alarming” number of teacher resignations in the district during the first few months of the 2013-14 school year.

“Good teachers are having to make hard decisions to leave our classrooms for a better future somewhere else or in another line of work, in another profession – not in our public schools and not in our state,” said Doug Thilman, Wake’s assistant superintendent for human resources, at a news conference at Underwood Elementary School in Raleigh.

“We know anecdotally that financial security and a more manageable workload has a lot to do with these decisions, and we know that’s our job to sound an alarm to stop the teacher flight, particularly from Wake County, but across our state.”

Well, teacher turnover rates for school districts and the state have been posted on the N.C. State Board of Education meeting site.

There was a fairly sizable decrease in Wake County’s teacher turnover rate.

According to data compiled by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, Wake County’s turnover rate dropped by 0.5 percent – from 12.10 percent in 2012-13 to 11.51 percent in 2013-14. The 2013-14 rate is even lower than the rate reported in 2011-12, which was 11.61 percent.